


Memorable

by Azzandra



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Post-Canon, Temporary Partial Amnesia, no beta we die like Glenn, warning for Dimitri's self-loathing bullshit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-27 04:00:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21385744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azzandra/pseuds/Azzandra
Summary: "There was a woman here earlier," Dimitri said slowly, carefully; navigating his thoughts felt like wading through chest-high water. "She had green hair, and wore church vestments. Who was she?"Felix gave him an incredulous look, before it melted into irritation."That's your wife!" Felix snapped, with enough reprimand in his voice that Dimitri felt a sting of shame.Once he fully processed Felix's words, however, Dimitri was as stunned as though he had been knocked silly once again."But she's beautiful!" Dimitri blurted out.Dimitri gets hit on the head and forgets a few vital facts. It's not funny. (It's kind of funny.)
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 35
Kudos: 809





	Memorable

Dimitri felt himself adrift in a storm. The flurry of healers around his bed were there to help him, but apparently had no need for him to be actively involved in the process. Once in a while, one stepped up to him, poked and prodded, asked him a question.

When one of them asked him what year it was Dimitri opened his mouth, but paused before answering for much to long, and when he eventually blurted out a number, he could tell by the way the healer's lips pressed together that it was the wrong one. He had hit his head, they explained, and his memory was affected. Not for long, though, they assured. They had spells to deal with his injury, only a mild disagreement on which ones. Nobody wanted to get it wrong, when it came to the king.

Adrift in the middle of the debates that concerned him and eluded him all at once, and feeling himself strangely confused by the nature of time at that moment, Dimitri found his attention anchoring to the one reassuring point of familiarity in the room, especially with Dedue posted outside the bedchambers to keep out anyone who did not belong. There was Felix, standing by his bedside with a frown on his face and a hand on his hilt--the latter gesture probably not meant as a threat, but as self-reassurance in the midst of an uncertain situation.

Dimitri was not so sure himself, so what that hand on his hilt was to Felix, Felix was to Dimitri. His addled mind might superimpose the image of his young childhood friend Felix over the sight before him, of Duke Fraldarius striking an imposing figure, but there was at least a constancy to Felix's character that made the two images of him seem complementary rather than contrasting.

"Felix," Dimitri said--not quite in a whisper, but keeping his voice to a low rumble that would not distract the healers.

Felix, who'd been looking over to the other side of the room, shifted towards Dimitri, remaining alert to everything even as his attention fell to the king.

"What?" Felix barked. Annoyed, by the sound of it, but Dimitri guessed he was annoyed by having to be worried about him, if anything. Dimitri restrained a smile, however. Felix would not take it well.

"There was a woman here earlier," Dimitri said slowly, carefully; navigating his thoughts felt like wading through chest-high water. "She had green hair, and wore church vestments. Who was she?"

Felix gave him an incredulous look, before it melted into irritation.

"That's your wife!" Felix snapped, with enough reprimand in his voice that Dimitri felt a sting of shame.

Once he fully processed Felix's words, however, Dimitri was as stunned as though he had been knocked silly once again.

"But she's beautiful!" Dimitri blurted out, his face heating up. This was probably not good for his head injury.

Felix looked at him with an expression torn between familiar annoyance and profound amusement, before it settled into something Dimitri would almost describe as 'mischievous', if not for the malicious edge to it. He turned away from Dimitri to scan the room.

"Your Grace!" Felix called out. Not loudly, but his voice had enough authority that it cut straight over the warm murmurs of the healers.

"Felix, what are you doing?" Dimitri hissed.

Felix gave Dimitri a mean-spirited little look as a figure stepped out from the crowd of healers and strode across the room towards them.

"Yes?" the green-haired woman said, coolly serene.

"The king requires your presence," Felix informed her, and for all that he didn't call Dimitri a boar, his tone certainly implied it. With that, he gave a curt bow and departed Dimitri's bedside, leaving him alone with the woman.

The woman tilted her head to look at him, and then, uninvited, sat on the edge of his bed. Dimitri resisted the urge to scoot over, instead freezing like a rabbit in the underbrush. He could feel the warmth of her body radiating against his hip. He had been stripped down to shirtsleeves and trousers by the healers, but this was the first time he felt exposed. 

Still, despite the otherwise neutral expression the woman bore, something softened around her eyes as she looked at him.

"The healers tell me you should recover fully with treatment. I suppose," she mused, "that I ought to prevent this from happening at all. But then you wouldn't have a good reason to listen to the lecture I plan to give you about minding yourself and your well-being."

Dimitri couldn't quite follow her words, but that had probably less to do with the knock on the head he'd gotten, and more with how he found her face utterly entrancing.

She gave him a searching look in turn, but she must have found something far more illuminating in his own countenance.

"You don't remember who I am, do you?" she asked.

Dimitri felt ice in the pit of his stomach, the dread of having disappointed her. From what he'd been told, Dimitri had been thrown off his horse, and gotten up again immediately, apparently no worse for wear. It was not until the hunting party reached the castle that anyone noticed the king was not acting like himself.

In truth, Dimitri couldn't remember any of this. He only knew of it because Sylvain had relayed the incident to the healers. The other gaps in his memory were not evident even to himself, until he ran up against some question he couldn't answer.

Still, how wide a gorge must his missing memories be, that he had lost all recollection of a marriage in it?

"I am so sorry," he said. But far from seeming angry, the woman instead gave him a small smile and placed her hand against his cheek. It was warm and calloused, so warm. Dimitri swallowed, feeling his face heat up once again. "Are you really my... I mean... are we... married?" He added the last word in almost a whisper, afraid to be mistaken.

"We have been for five years," she informed him.

"Oh." Embarrassment rose up from his belly and immediately soured into self-recrimination. He was unworthy of her, a dreadful husband if he could forget her so easily. A failure. A fiend. "I am sorry," he added again, not for forgetting this time, but for being a wretch. 

Despite this, he placed his own hand over the one she had on his cheek, afraid of her pulling away and anticipating it all the same. He did not press hard, and expected to feel her hand slip out from under his palm, yet its gentle warmth persisted.

"Shh," she said instead, soothing. Her thumb stroked his cheekbone. "You've been through enough, Dimitri. I only want you to feel better. I'm not upset, so don't you dwell on it either."

The words 'yes, beloved' jumped to Dimitri's tongue, but he swallowed them back, afraid to overstep when he did not even remember the shape of their boundaries. He gave a slow nod instead, mindful of the pain in his head.

"Do you want me to stay with you?" she asked.

"Yes," he said breathlessly. He could not look away from her, could not stop drinking in the sight of her face, thirsty for some drop of familiarity. But he could not wedge apart his longing from his wishful thinking to tell if she was truly familiar to him in some way. He could only stare, awed by her beauty, and intimidated by her poise.

She gave him a small smile, and the way she tilted her head away from the sight of anyone else made that smile feel like something for him alone. 

He swallowed dryly. Oh. Oh, he hoped his body would not react in some embarrassing way to this attention. 

He squirmed, and she removed her hand from his cheek only so that she would take his own hand in hers, press them palm to palm and lace their fingers together.

Self-consciously, Dimitri held his fingers as still as possible, careful not to squeeze too tightly or cause any discomfort to her with his monstrous strength. Her hands were so small compared to his. Had he spent every day of their marriage afraid he would break her?

His gaze went to the ring on his finger, the elegantly etched silver band. 

"Are you..." Dimitri faltered, as his mouth rode ahead of his brain, and he had to catch up and phrase the question properly.

"Am I...?" she prompted.

"...Happy?" He'd meant to make his voice sound light, but it came out small instead. Mortifyingly vulnerable, especially with how her expression crumpled into something that matched how he felt right then.

"Dimitri," she said, gentle as a summer breeze, "I couldn't possibly be happier."

"A-ah... Good, that's good," Dimitri stammered, embarrassed by the affection in his voice. He avoided her eyes, but then grew even more flustered by the sight of their hands still intertwined. He dearly hoped nobody was looking in their direction. "There must have been something I do not remember to have done, that meant I deserved the love of someone such as you."

This time, she didn't smile, but outright grinned, the expression sending a strange electric thrill down his back. His leg twitched, and he once again hoped his body would not betray him.

"The only thing you ever had to do was be yourself," she said, and then, in a scandalous breach of decorum and propriety, leaned down to peck him on the lips. She was so quick, that she had stolen the kiss before he even knew what happened.

"Beloved, please," he squeaked out. With all the people in the room, honestly...! And she, a woman of the church!

"I see," she said archly, "so now we have gone from 'are we truly married' to calling me 'beloved' in public?"

Dimitri felt his face flush at her accusation, though doubtless she was responsible for the greater infraction. But she took pity on him, and she even disentangled their hands as she gave a low laugh at his predicament.

Thankfully, she did not leave his side, and only moved to give healers space as they came to subject Dimitri to a battery of spells.

White magic sank into his flesh with a prickling coolness, and his head did indeed feel better in the aftermath. He felt as though he might rise without growing dizzy now.

But his memories did not spring forth even as his physical conditions improved.

"You must sleep," one of the healers said. "Your body has been overtaxed both by the injury and the healing, and your mind requires time to sort itself out. Rest is the best treatment remaining."

"If there's nothing else, then," Felix drawled, "you can all leave."

Despite the brusque dismissal, it actually took some doing to herd all the healers out of the room. Dedue stood sternly by the door to see everyone out, and responded to any protestations from the healers with such a dour look, that it sent them scurrying along. Even Felix was quick to depart, though that perhaps had more to do with the fact that with the king out of commission, much of Dimitri's responsibilities would fall to him.

When the room had vacated of all but Dimitri and his wife, Dedue gave a nod to Dimitri, and left, closing the door behind himself.

Leaving Dimitri alone. With his wife.

Dimitri felt unaccountably nervous about this, for a man five years married. But then, at the moment, he could not even recall her name. Some nerves were justified.

He sat up on the edge of his bed, looking anywhere but at the woman before him.

"I suppose," she said, leaning her cheek on her fist as she regarded him, "that I ought to go and request a room be made up for me."

"Do you not have a room already?" Dimitri asked thoughtlessly.

"I have one at Garreg Mach," she replied, looking amused, "but when I am in Fhirdiad, I usually bed down in..." She gestured to the room around herself, "...here."

If he had not been nervous before, he certainly felt so now.

"No, don't go," he said, reaching out to grab her wrist. He cringed a bit at being so forward, but she did not pull away. "It... would only start whispers if you requested to sleep apart."

"You're uncomfortable," she pointed out, as though this was reason enough for her to leave, as though that mattered even a little. But the thought that it might matter to her sent a pleasant flutter through Dimitri's chest.

"I'd be more uncomfortable if you left," he insisted. "Please."

"Very well," she said with a twinkle in her eye.

She went behind a changing screen, and re-emerged in a simple white nightgown. Dimitri, prodded into action by the sudden need not to stare at her, went behind the screen next. He had a pair of light linen pants to sleep in, and dug out an undershirt as well, feeling much too exposed otherwise.

He put out all the lamps around the room one by one, and by the time he approached the bed, she was already a gently-curved shape under the covers. He got into bed as inobtrusively as he could, even though it was unlikely she was already asleep and likely to be woken by his movement.

Regardless, the bed was large enough that they might not have to touch at all throughout the night.

And yet.

And yet, as soon as he was laid out in it, she turned towards him, molding herself to his side, and pillowing her head against his shoulder. He held his breath as his arm went around her reflexively, and suddenly, it all seemed familiar again. He breathed in the floral scent of her hair, and closed his eyes as he was flooded by feelings he knew he'd experienced before.

**Author's Note:**

> A while ago I watched a video of a guy who, under the effect of anesthesia, forgot his girlfriend. As she was standing next to his bed, he kept going 'are you really my girlfriend?' and 'you're so pretty' like he was truly amazed this woman was dating him. Anyway, I thought of that lately, and Dimitri... is definitely that guy.


End file.
